Throne Hunters Book 4, Chapter 9

Lord Rowan Thorn peeled off his gloves and held them out so that some servant or other could take them, then raised his chin so a second could unclasp his cloak. The Council Meeting had been interminable, with every fool and their inbred cousin needing to bleat their opinion to the heavens, even if they were only repeating what the last idiot had shouted.

He’d sat through it all, chin on his fist, listening, morose, alert, dissatisfied.

Accepting a cut crystal flute of everwine from another servant, he strode into his manor, ignoring the finery, the bowing attendants, and made for his library. His majordomo understand the implication, and stepped back, knowing not to press.

Closing the paneled door behind him, Lord Thorn allowed himself to exhale, bow his head, and smile ruefully at the futility of it all. The greatest danger in the world was preventing his life from becoming a farce, a play in which he acted his role, but never truly lived, never truly broke free from the constricting script.

Even now, as events came to a head and the Church threatened theocratic rule, everything felt orchestrated, pre-ordained, each shout, each outrage, each noble’s reaction predictable and trite and boring.

Rowan took a sip from the everwine, allowed its bubbles to play across his tongue, then stepped into his favorite chamber, footfalls muffled by the bearskin, to move before the custom chandelier that descended from the ceiling fifteen feed overhead to almost touch the ground.

It was a model of the Dungeon, carved according to the most exacting reports and by the finest craftsmen his scales could buy. All hundred levels, though only the upper 40 were possibly accurate.

Each level was a miniature diorama, a simulacra of what raiders had reported from their expeditions, some displaying twisting tunnels, others rolling meadows, some littered with ruins, others little more than nebulous clouds shot through with ominous lighting.

It was the central puzzle, the only puzzle worth considering. Even brilliant minds such as Lady Celestis were preoccupied with trivia and the mundane, with how to seize temporal power, how to rule Flutic, how to gain authority over the rest of the noble Houses. What a waste of time and energy.

The true treasure, the only worthy pursuit of anybody’s time, lay in deciphering and uncovering the secrets of the Fallen Angel.

Why did pentagonal faces in the Dungeon Portal lead to the first dozen floors, but then the triangular facets lead to every fifth or fourth level from then on? Why had the Angel chosen to imprint upon her psyche the forms and images of tens of thousands of monsters and people who had lived during the time of her fall, and summon them endlessly to do battle with the raiders who dared to descend her levels? Could one consider her yet alive, given her role in doling out Classes and fashioning Artifacts, in triggering Shudderings and deciding how best each level should respond to each intrusion? And if she was alive, why did she tolerate the demons to despoil her Thrones, why didn’t she call to her sisters and brothers who yet flew in the Pleroma to come to her aid?

Lord Thorn sipped and considered, eyeing the hundred suspended levels. What was the purpose of this entire construction? The Fallen Angel’s goal?

The High Demon Silenthros had, over the years, revealed sufficient glints and glimmers as to his own viewpoint to construct a fascinating narrative, one completely at odds with the creed of the Mother Church: that it was the natural life cycle of the Angels to occasionally fall to the Continent and provide sustenance for ascending beings to take her place. That her Fall initiated a scramble for power as fledging potentates—what humanity called demons—fought to claim her mantle and rise in her place. That she herself had once been a demon, and clawed her way to glory.

A pretty tale. It removed all morality and culpability from Silenthros’ actions. If anything, it gave his desire for conquest a primal imperative, like salmon swimming upstream or humans questing for mates so they could create children.

But no. He didn’t believe it.

If it were true, why did representatives of the Angels battle so bitterly against the demons to prevent their acquiring their Thrones? Why did the Fallen Angel reward mere humans when her focus should be exclusively on helping a single demon ascend? Why did the demons themselves fear humanity so, and seek to corrupt their best with Demon Seeds?

A knock sounded on the door.

“Enter.”

Newt One-Eye slipped into the library and closed the door silently behind him. “Any news?”

Rowan drew his golden medallion from out under his shirt. Its central gem yet glowed a soft green. “He’s still hunting.”

The Gold-ranked raider and premiere warrior of House Viridian glided over to an armchair where he sat, his long green scarf trailing behind him across the floor. “Do you think he’s had difficulty?”

Rowan considered the Artifact. “I can’t say. He lives, as the gem yet glows. He’s not killed Harald, for the light remains green. That is the full extent of the facts at hand.”

The raider ran one of his unnervingly long fingers along the lipless seam of his mouth. “You sounded far more confident in Council.”

“Bluster has its place.” Rowan moved to sit across from the lanky raider. “But it’s not entirely misplaced. Thracos had been nothing if not full of surprises.”

“The same could be said for this Harald. Gorkin is, after all, dead.”

“Let all of Flutic wear black and shed a tear of mourning.” Rowan smiled. “We should be celebrating Harald, not hunting him, for this grand deed. But that’s not how the world works.”

“My point is that he killed a hundred men and finished his slaughter with Fosso. Both deeds should have been beyond a Copper-ranked raider.”

“A Copper-ranked raider with Vorakhar’s Demon Seed,” corrected Rowan gently. “Which changes the game from checkers to chess.”

“Even a Demon Seed shouldn’t have allowed him to survive that assault.”

“Thracos leant him the Aureate Master.”

Newt went still. “What?”

“I know. I wasn’t pleased.” Rowan raised the everwine to his nose and inhaled its sublime scent. “But Thracos is bored, Newt. Yes, he’s growing and climbing the ranks faster than anyone, but even rapid growth can grow boring, it seems. He’s been craving excitement. I told him to get a girlfriend, and he didn’t even bother laughing at my jest.”

“The Aureate Master. That explains some of it. But now Harald will be twice as hard to kill.”

“Surprisingly, he returned it. Don’t ask me. Honor amongst demon-kin? Thracos was touched. But even if this Harald Darrowdelve has grown powerful, even if he now controls the Twilight Crown, he won’t be able to stop Thracos.” Rowan’s smile was almost pitying. “After all, nothing can.”

Newt’s broad mouth pulled into an exaggerated frown. “Thracos is fond of him. That may poison his perspective.”

“Thracos being fond of someone is the equivalent of a butcher being momentarily fond of a piglet. That friendship was doomed to end in a decapitation from the start.”

“I’m telling you this now: I’m not confident in Thracos. His soul is too… poetic. He’s unreliable.”

“You’re saying I should have sent you?”

Newt had yet to blink, and his stare was direct and unyielding. “I am House Viridian’s greatest raider. I would have crushed Harald before he could say ‘stop’.”

“I know. But it must be Thracos. Silenthros willed it.”

“Pah.” Newt stirred in his armchair. “These games weaken us.”

“These games have elevated us past all others,” corrected Rowan mildly. “Don’t grow ornery on me in your old age, my friend.”

Newt’s frown reversed itself into an unnaturally broad smile. “You want to ornery?”

“The point being, Thracos must be the one who slays Harald, for Harald is Vorakhar’s toy, and this duel is playing out on a grander board than our own. So. What’s done is done. Thracos has the Aureate Master, and all the Abilities that have made him unstoppable in the Dungeon. Combined with his hunting Artifact, Harald’s a dead man walking.”

“Thracos is slow to manifest is true power. If Harald can hit him hard and fast enough, he could go down.”

Rowan waved the concern away. “Thracos is nearly indestructible. Thorn-Wreathed alone allows him to heal from minor wounds quickly, but when combined with Leechburst Laceration, which’ll drain Harald of his own strength before he knows what’s going on, and his Verdant Persistence, I doubt Harald will be able to even make a mark.”

Newt’s blink was almost violent. “Verdant Persistence only works in natural environments or in the sun. Neither are given in the Dungeon.”

Rowan restrained his annoyance. “He only has to last long enough for Arboreal Might to take root. With enough time, even you would be hard-pressed to take him down.”

“I wouldn’t be, because I wouldn’t give him the time. Just like Harald might not.”

Rowan sat forward. “You’re seriously concerned that Thracos, a Level 7 Verdant Monarch Demon Seed-infused warrior and beloved of the great demon Silenthros, might be unable to defeat a Copper-ranked raider who no longer has the Aureate Master?”

“I examined the Gorkin estate,” said Newt, melting back into the armchair. “If that was the work of one man, then that man is far more dangerous than a Copper-ranked raider could ever be.”

Rowan smiled his dangerous smile. He was running out of patience. “I know you dislike Thracos. You’ve made your opinion on his rise and our orienting House priorities around him abundantly clear. But this borders on the irrational.”

“Thracos is flawed.” Newt’s words were stark and uncompromising. “He is a romantic fool. You say he is fond of this Harald. That is a weakness. And Harald is more dangerous than Thracos ever was.”

“And why is that?”

“Only a few months ago Harald was nobody. Now he is powerful enough to cut his way through a hundred elite mercenaries and kill Fosso in hand-to-hand combat right after. Thracos could not have done that.”

“He had the Aureate Master.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m talking about what he has in here,” said Newt, and tapped his chest. “That much killing takes a special soul. Few can tear arms off bodies like I saw. Burst heads like melons. Pile up the dead in mounds, and not collapse under the weight of their deeds.”

Rowan clicked his tongue. “So he’s a beast.”

“Fosso would have swallowed a mere beast.”

“So he’s a beast that got lucky. He had the Aureate Master. Honestly, Newt, this conversation is ridiculous.”

Now it was Newt’s turn to lean forward. “Thracos is powerful, yes. His parasites can eat Harald from within. He can trap him in place, cause the very ground beneath him to erupt with deadly root strikes—”

“Don’t minimize Sovereign Rootstrike,” cut in Rowan. “That’s a 5th Level Ability that can sunder a boulder.”

Newt continued as if uninterrupted, “And yes, Arboreal Might makes him unstoppable in time. And yes, Bloom of the Devouring King will undo Harald, and Aureate Phytomancer will compound the damage again and again and again. But.”

“But,” echoed Rowan tiredly. “Something about him being a weak poet or the like?”

Newt’s gimlet gaze was unnervingly steady. “Did you know House Celestis sought to recruit Harald?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Did you know Yseult Khan tried to take him prisoner, but Harald escaped her and crossed the Angelic Quarter before she was forced to give up her pursuit?”

“Now that’s interesting. The Khan herself couldn’t catch him?”

“This Harald is too much of an unknown. I say to you again: he killed a hundred elite mercenaries by tearing them apart, and then killed Fosso. We don’t know what Artifacts Vorakhar may have gifted him. There is too much we don’t know.”

Rowan bit his lower lip as he considered the Gold-ranked raiders’ words. He couldn’t, and wouldn’t, discount them out of hand. Newt was too savvy, too smart, had survived too much to be completely wrong about something like this.

“I hear what you’re saying, old friend, but I still have faith in Thracos. Even if he wavers, even if he regrets needing to kill this boy, he’s beholden to Silenthros. He has no choice in the matter. With his peerless regeneration abilities he can survive until Arboreal Might  makes the battle moot. Harald will find himself pinned, infested, torn apart from within, demoralized, torn asunder, and so corrupted by primal life that he’ll not even recognize himself before Thracos ends his life.” He considered. “No. There’s no chance that Thracos can fail.”

Newt shrugged. “I’ve said my piece. What do you make of the Inquisitor’s threats?”

Relieved for the change of subject, Rowan waved his flute airily before him. “Laughable. A single hand of Inquisitors makes militant threats, and we’re to believe the entire corpus of the Mother Church is ready to plunge Flutic into civil war?”

“You think it a bluff?”

“I think it a calculated power grab by an aggressive minority. And it may work. The Council will concede all manner of rights and taxes to avoid open conflict. They’re rattling their saber, and have picked their timing well. With the Twilight Crown missing, we can’t afford to become distracted. They’ll make their demands, we’ll counter, and the whole affair will grind down into an interminable negotiation while we remain focused on recovering the Crown.”

“But Thracos is going to bring it back with him,” said Newt warily. “Today or tomorrow.”

“True. And House Thornvale will take the Twilight Crown into safe keeping while we decide how best to guard it against future losses like the one that just took place.” Rowan smiled. “Perhaps we’ll need to get creative with finding a new custodian. It is, after all, too powerful an Artifact to allow to fall into the wrong hands.”

Newt’s smile was tentative at first, and then his lips parted wide to reveal his many, many little teeth. “I couldn’t agree more, Lord Thorn. It would be reckless for us to simply hand it over to a feuding Council with the Inquisitors breathing down our necks.”

“Beyond reckless.” Rowan sighed contentedly. “There’s even the possibility of delivering it to a truly great authority for safekeeping. Who could possibly wrest it away from Lord Silenthros? And wouldn’t he be pleased to receive such a gift. Whomever gave it to him would no doubt be amply rewarded.”

Newt’s smile faltered. “A dangerous ploy.”

“All truly great moves are. I’ve no appetite to play at lordling in Flutic. To spend my years subjugating idiots and ruling over the Council. Leave that to Melisende. No. This could be our ticket to opening up the Dungeon. To gaining a seat the table. After all, if Angels are but evolved demons, what are demons?”

“You think…?”

Rowan shrugged nonchalantly. “Demons must arise from somewhere, don’t you think? The most promising candidates from the rung below. Demon Seeds create nothing but the most excellent of foot soldiers. No. I imagine the most promising of human generals, the true visionaries, are the ones rewarded with true power. With the Crown, if I am careful, if I play my cards just right, I may gain sufficient notoriety to ascend. Or at least, begin the process.”

“I have never been anything but astounded at your ambition, my lord.”

“It’s my sole redeeming quality.” He raised his medallion to consider the green gem in its center. “All we need is for Thracos to bring the Crown back. We’re this close, my old friend, we’re this close.”

To which Newt made no response, but simply watched his lord with his gimlet gaze, his expression inscrutable.